Saturday, May 5th, 2007
A NEW GOOGLE TOOL
StatisfyZenpundit
Located on the sidebar above the blogroll. A hat tip to Matt at MountainRunner.
Archive for 2007
Saturday, May 5th, 2007
DOES THE IC NEED TO FIND THE “TEACHABLE MOMENTS”?
From Kent’s Imperative:
” The potential implications of this study are of interest not only to those that must manage the effective instruction and mentoring of the next generation of analysts and officers, but there are tantalizing suggestions that similar dynamics may be at work when finding a successful briefer. Given that most decision-makers tend to be more extroverted, and outcomes oriented, the tendency of these individuals to rely more heavily on rapid conclusions drawn from initial thin slice impressions weighed against their own knowledge and experiences, is likely to be even more pronounced than the average student.”
Educators have a concept among themselves, known as ” the teachable moment” that is somewhat difficult for most outsiders to grasp (though sucessful salesmen, preachers, orators and litigators may recognize it). There is a particular place in time when a presenter of memes and the entirety of the audience to which they speak can meet and, for an instant, merge. Perhaps an accurate descriptor might be ” synchronized cognition”. In any event, like a wave, where there had once been darkness there is light; where ignorance had ruled, suddenly, insight reigns transcendent.
These moments are rare though accomplished instructors have a record of igniting them. Some became legendary life-influencers. Carroll Quiqley’s lectures at Georgetown on the nature and historical legacy of Platonic philosophy, the classroom antics of uber-physicist Richard Feynman , Chicago philosopher Allan Bloom’s master-mentoring of his students all were directed to a larger point and yielded ripples of effect far beyond their classrooms that have outlived these scholars themselves.
The IC is of course, not quite the same thing as an academic setting but the cognitive aspect is not unrelated and the stakes are far higher as briefers deal with top level policy maker “customers” who themselves, often, have an impressive store of experience and analytical capabilities of their own ( and very little time available to engage with the briefer). It was probably a fairly nerve-wracking experience for a CIA analyst to have to brief Secretary of State George Schultz with unwelcome news. Or a Zbigniew Brzezinski or any number the more formidible personalities of the Cold War era. Yet at times, briefs created historical tipping points such as the NIE that predicted a Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, IMINT analysis of U-2’s flying over Cuba and most famously, George Kennan’s “Long Telegram” which was less a diplomatic cable than an analytical tour de force by the leading Soviet expert of the Foreign Service.
Briefing has it’s teaching aspects and if briefs of unimpeachably solid intelligence are not creating the impact that the substance merits, then it might be time to study techniques of delivery instead of writing off poor results and a lack of influence to “politics” alone.
Friday, May 4th, 2007
EARLY RECOMMENDED READING
Normally, I do this on Sunday but whenever I have a “surge” at work, there seems to be ten million things to post about, none of which I have time to do. These blogfriends have great material up that I’d like to highlight in the interim.
Thomas P.M. Barnett – “The State of the World: Author’s Commentary Track – Page 2” in Esquire ( with fantastic Halle Berry cover). Hat tip to Sean.
Some timely Brave New War reviews by Shloky and Fester at Newshoggers.
The vibrant ” Army Squeezes Soldier’s Blogs, maybe to Death” thread at The Small Wars Council – which drew a choice comment from me.
That’s it!
Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007
SIX DEGREES OF PARTICIPATION
Tech guru Ross Mayfield has an important post “Social Technographics and a Power Law of Participation” that would be of interest to most serious bloggers. In it, Mayfield analyzes the results of a demographic study that examined the nature and degree of interactivity of participation on the Web, displayed in the visual hierarchy below:
A closer look at Mayfield’s visualization can be found here at Flickr
An excerpt:
“I still contend that a more ideal community is scale free in structure. What I wonder is if you could benchmark these levels of engagement against a power law — not just to test Forrester’s findings, but to help a given company realize — “we are under-weighted in critics!”
LOL! I agree. Try to love your critics. Even when they are dead wrong they are the ( sometimes irritating) guides toward truth.
On a personal level, I am a creator and a critic foremost, followed closely by spectator. I dip my toe in being a joiner and I am not a collector at all. I’m not sure why this is. I had a bloglines account and then a blogbridge aggregator and both fell into immediate disuse. I don’t subscribe to a single RSS feed and I’ve been told that mine malfunctions a lot. I don’t do digg or that delicious thing and I understand neither. Recently, eerie, the mistress of the group blog Aqoul indicated she kept track of about 240 blogs(!). My hat is off to her, I can’t muster that kind of interest.
How about you ?
